What It Takes
by TB's LMC
Summary: What does it take for a man to become a U.S. Navy SEAL? What does it then take for that man to become the head of a civilian task force? Looks like Danno's got a thing or two to learn about both. Bromance, no slash.
1. Expectations

_**Summary**: What does it take for a man to become a U.S. Navy SEAL? What does it then take for that man to become the head of a civilian task force? Looks like Danno's got a thing or two to learn about both. Bromance, no slash._

_**Author's Note**: The five sections of this story are from an article entitled "Being a Navy SEAL Takes Heart," which can be found on the website NavySEAL DOT com if this link doesn't come through: .com/navy-seals-take-heart/._

_**Spoilers**: I'll give a blanket for all of Season One and Episode One of Season Two. This story is set after that episode, entitled "Ha'i'ole."_

**WHAT IT TAKES**

_By TB's LMC_

Part One: Expectations

_Steve:_

For what he'd done during active service in the Navy, expectations were always clear. You were trained for every possible outcome, every eventuality. You were taught to withstand torture, to hold your breath for endless minutes. You were taught to outthink the enemy, to do whatever it takes to accomplish the mission. You were taught to compartmentalize, objectify, be almost superhuman. To think fast and act faster.

He'd been doing it since he was eighteen. At thirty-five, that meant seventeen years of doing things one way. Doing things the Navy way. The SEAL way.

From Governor Jameson, expectations had also been clear. That she'd had an ulterior motive was moot now. The fact was he'd known what she'd asked him to do, and she rarely batted an eye at how he did it.

The expectations from this new governor were pretty clear, too, and Steve had ideas about how to circumvent them while still coming out smelling like a rose. Because at the end of the day, solving the case, saving the life, stopping the illegal activity, that was what Denning cared about. And as long as he didn't blow up half of Oahu in the process, he figured he could get away with a lot.

But expectations from his partner, the one he'd chosen the second he'd set eyes on him in his father's garage, well, those were ones that took some getting used to. And then Steve would just sort of steam-roll over them anyway, leaving Danny sputtering in his wake, but always…_always_…following where he led. When push came to shove, he had one helluva team. He had one helluva _partner_.

_Danno:_

His whole life, Danny had lived according to certain sets of expectations that were crystal clear.

Growing up, he was the oldest son, the oldest brother. He had to look after his younger siblings, be there for them, help his folks out where they were concerned. He had responsibilities around the house, chores, and he also had a responsibility to set a good example for the younger ones. Danny's childhood hadn't been so much a childhood as it had been training for parenthood, if he were to be honest about it.

Parenthood, well, those expectations were a no-brainer for anyone who wanted to be a good parent, at least, that's how he felt about it. Protect her. Love her. Teach her right from wrong. Get her to the point where she could leave the nest to start her own life.

When he became a cop, the expectations were spelled out in black and white in the procedure manual. There were sections, sub-sections, point-point-zero-point-points for every conceivable circumstance. There was also the physical training, the staying in shape to run down perps, the use of a firearm. And whatever partner you had, you knew before you ever shook the man's hand what the expectation was: he has your back, you have his. Period.

So for Danny, moving to the Honolulu PD in and of itself wasn't any big shock. They did things by the same book as the cops in Jersey. It was when he was lifted out of that normal, comfortable existence and placed into Five-0 that things went all topsy-turvy on him.

They were still cops. So to Danny, this meant still following the same rules he'd been following for seventeen years. Except for one little hitch: his new partner. Holy Mother of God, the guy wouldn't know police procedure if he injected it directly into his brain.

Steve was a kick-ass partner, to be sure. What guy wouldn't like a man trained to kill with a hangnail having their back, right? But…he just wouldn't…no matter how much Danny tried pointing out every screwed-up thing McGarrett did, it went in one ear and out the other. On the up side, he got the gleeful task of naming and cataloguing the faces his rants forced Steve to make, and that was just fun.

On the down side, other than "having his back," Danny wasn't entirely sure what Steve was expecting from him. All he knew was that he wasn't at _all_ getting what he was expecting of a police partner. He just didn't know quite what to do with that.


	2. Endurance

Part Two: Endurance

_Steve_:

As far as Steve was concerned, what he'd endured in his Navy training had been far tougher than anything he'd had to deal with in his personal life. Until, that was, he'd had to listen to his father die over the phone from too far away to do a damn thing about it.

The SEALs, they taught you how to endure everything physical. How to overcome the physical with the mental. How to compartmentalize, find that place inside you where you could retreat to endure.

One thing, though, that no one in the Navy had taught him how to endure, was watching someone you love be in emotional pain right there before your eyes. As a teenager, he'd been so caught up in his own sorrow over his mother's death that he hadn't really thought too much about how his dad was feeling, how his sister was feeling.

He remembered so clearly the day Dad had told him he was sending him and Mary away. He remembered his mother's laugh, her smile. He had endured so much in his personal life, but this situation right here, it was unparalleled in his experience in either life or the Navy.

All he could do was watch Danno go down, unable to breathe. All he could do was mirror the panicked expression on his partner's face. The fear. The pain. Every line in Danny's face screaming out his daughter's name. Danny dying right in front of him, nothing he could do.

Just like enduring those endless, endless minutes when he didn't know whether Chin Ho would live or die with that bomb collar around his neck, now Steve was enduring a whole new fresh hell, not knowing whether Danny would live to kiss his Grace another day.

It cut Steve to the core. With Chin, he could do something to save him. With Danny, there was nothing at all he could do. Danny might die.

No more rants.

No more grins.

No more partner.

And Steve, he just…he didn't know what to do with that.

At all.

_Danno:_

Danny wasn't all that into pain. On any level. Sure, he'd taken some bullets in his time, some nice punches courtesy of assholes on the playground in school or, later, suspects who thought hand-to-hand with a cop was the way to go.

But Jesus Christ, it seemed like his partner _lived_ for pain, and that was just disturbing on way too many levels to contemplate. Steve was never so happy as when he was sporting a bleeding cut, a busted arm, a few cracked ribs. The guy would grin like he'd just been given a new box of grenades, say "Book 'em, Danno," and go merrily on his way, leaving Danny to wonder if the Navy had somehow trained pain out of the guy completely.

No, Danny knew he wouldn't do as well being tortured as Steve would. He knew he couldn't go running around every corner of Oahu chasing bad guys after getting shanked like Steve had. Christ, Danny would've welcomed a nice, long stay in bed had it been _his_ gut torn into. But Steve, he was like, super-human or something. Almost robotic at times, it seemed. If it wasn't for those weird faces of his, Danny might've seriously considered checking him for an OFF switch or a place to plug in the charger.

But emotionally, Danny was really good at handling bad situations. He had one word for anyone who wanted to ask how: divorce. EPIC FAIL also applied. Having your heart ripped out of your chest when you watched your little girl get on a plane to travel five thousand miles away worked, too. He'd left everything and everyone he'd ever known to come what amounted to a foreign country in his book, just to be close to her.

And had endured being shut out as a _haole_ outsider from most of HPD. And had sat alone in his apartment more nights than not. And had felt like a miserable failure a good portion of the time. Until Steve, and Chin, and Kono.

That Steve, though, he was _definitely_ what Danny would call emotionally constipated. Sure, he'd seen Steve wrestle with his emotions when Mary had arrived on the scene. Then when she'd been kidnapped. He'd brushed that off as family. Any guy will get emotional about his family, even emotionally constipated ones.

The look on Steve's face when they'd found Chin with that bomb collar strapped onto his neck, the sheer hatred of Victor Hesse, the fierce determination. He'd allowed a moment of fear to show, but then bottled it back up like it had no place in his life, determined to be a Super SEAL and save Chin's life. Then he'd just gone back to being Mr. Emotionally Constipated.

At least, that's what Danny had thought until he'd sank down in front of that house, having way too hard a time breathing, and looked up to find two huge, round eyes staring at him with what could only be described as a scared shitless look.

Steve _did_ have emotions, he'd discovered that day. It just took a lot for you to see them sometimes, and really, once Danny managed to get out of the hospital and put his mind to it, he realized reading Steve was easier than reading a preschool book. The guy tried for stoic but missed by about ten thousand miles most of the time. For so long, he hadn't seen it. But now he did, and he watched carefully, learning more about his partner as they went along from what he _didn't_ say, much more than from what he _did_.

Danny used to think it was his lot in life to endure a lonely, miserable existence. Then he'd latched onto the fact that it was his lot in life to endure a partner who was so damn different from him it bordered on comical most of the time, and life-threatening the rest of the time.

But maybe, Danny thought, he wasn't so much enduring Steve now, as he…as he was…

As he was…what?


	3. Hell Week

Part Three: Hell Week

_Steve:_

Hell Week? Yeah, that'd been as advertised. But Steve was damn good, and had made it through BUD/S on the first try so Hell Week was really nothing more than a distant memory. He didn't even know any of the guys he'd gone through with anymore.

Before the SEALs, Hell Week had been the week his mother had died. Following that, his first week in his new home after having been sent back to the mainland. After the SEALs, it'd been his father's murder, and then subsequent to that, Jameson's assassination and his own arrest and time in jail.

The next thing to reach Hell Week status in Steve's world was when Wo Fat had him in North Korea. When Jenna had been murdered right in front of him. When he'd been tortured for information he simply didn't have.

Yeah, he'd had his share of Hell Weeks in his life, but all in all, he considered himself no worse for the wear. After all, he had his _ohana_ to fall back on. He had Catherine – thank God for ship-to-shore communications – and he had his sister, who was only a telephone call away.

Never mind that after making Danny his partner, for a while he'd considered that first week getting used to the Williams mouth a sort of Hell Week all its own…

_Danno:_

He'd read about Hell Week, had a decent idea of what Steve had gone through, what _all_ SEALs have to get through to become SEALs to begin with. And it'd made him think. Think long and hard about his partner, about the things Danny had always chalked up to McGarrett being two bricks shy of a load that Danny was only just starting to recognize was nothing more than Steve's _very_ different and, to Danny, foreign training coming out.

He started watching Steve more carefully, when he could get his mind off Rachel enough to do so, and realized he'd been a bit of a stick in the mud. Okay, he'd been a downright asshole to Steve at times, but the guy still tolerated him and joked around with him and even seemed to care about him, and Danny wasn't quite sure what to do with that on top of everything else.

And then? Then, he ran into a Hell Week of his own.

Steve arrested for murder. Rachel and Grace in New Jersey. The baby not his. Steve's gut ripped open, escaping from the ambulance, on the run and injured.

He yelled when he finally got eyes on his partner in Max's apartment to hide the fear. And then wondered who was really the emotionally constipated one of the duo.

He'd lost his family all over again. He'd almost lost _Steve_. And when push came to shove, that was when he realized he _couldn't_ leave Hawaii. Who would watch Steve's back? Who would be his backup? Who would be there for him like Danny was?

Sure, maybe Chin could fill the role. Maybe one of the other guys Steve had gotten friendly with since returning to Hawaii. After all, there was more to all of them than just Five-0 and the people associated with it.

But Danny, well, he just needed to feel like he was important to someone other than Grace here in this pineapple-infested hellhole, and so whether or not it was true, he told himself after that Hell Week of his own that leaving Steve wasn't an option. Period.

The baby was Stan's. But that meant that Grace and Rachel were coming back. Coming _home_. He wouldn't have to leave Steve, Five-0 or Hawaii, and yet…

It hurt.

It hurt _bad_.

When he looked into the rearview mirror, he could see his own pain reflected in his partner's eyes, and in that moment, knew the reason why they stayed connected even though they were so different. Why Steve put up with him busting his ass every other minute. Steve wasn't the emotionally constipated one at _all_.

Danny was the one still in love with his ex-wife. Who'd slept with a married woman. Who wanted nothing more than to put things back the way they used to be, when he was ignoring what was right there next to him.

Steve _cared_, and he _showed_ it.

His partner had once told him, "Hell Week's a bitch, but what you get when you come out the other end of it is worth it, man."

Yeah. Maybe it _was_ worth it.

Maybe it was.


	4. Heart

Part Four: Heart

_Steve:_

His training had taught him there were two kinds of people: those with heart, and those without it.

Those without, would talk talk talk a blue streak about how to do something better, or how someone else was doing it wrong, or what somebody _should_ be doing in lieu of what they actually _were_.

Those _with_ heart were the doers. They were the ones who gave everything a hundred and ten percent, whether in their own personal lives, or in their professional lives. They didn't _talk_ about it, they _did_ it.

Steve hadn't ever really thought, "I have heart" or "I don't have heart." All he'd known was what he wanted. And all he wanted was to be a SEAL. So he built up his stamina, and he gave a hundred and _fifty_ percent, all the time, no holds barred, zero to sixty in roughly no seconds flat.

He'd never stopped being that way, being the guy who gave it more than most men even thought about giving. From completing his missions to tracking down his father's murderer. From taking on something completely foreign to him – a task force that lived within the world of cops, rather than the military – to trying to figure out his partner, Steve gave it his all.

He rarely failed at anything.

And he was rarely untouched by anything.

He found, however, that his partner was something of a cosmic mystery to him, because this single person from the state of New Jersey (and…really? New Jersey? How _even_ did he wind up with a New Jersey partner in a Hawaiian paradise, anyway?) flew completely in the face of what the Navy purported to be the gospel truth about men.

Why?

Because Danny? He was a talker. _But_…he was _also_ a doer.

So…did he have heart? Or did he _not_ have heart?

Steve could hear in his memory, his instructor barking at one of the other guys in his class about it. "I've never heard someone yap so much in my life, put my own _mother_ to shame! You are forbidden from speaking for the rest of the _day_, Graves!"

The poor Graves had meekly said, "Yes, sir," which had earned him a very rough night of solo training in twenty-degree four-foot surf. Yikes.

"I SAID NO SPEAKING!" the instructor had bellowed. "YOU DON'T HAVE HEART, YOU HAVE MOUTH!"

Danny had mouth.

Oh, Jesus Christ, did Danny have mouth.

But Steve had also seen him with Grace. Seen him look at Rachel. Seen the hurt in his eyes when children were imperiled or murdered. Seen the defeat on his face in the wake of Matty's betrayal. He'd seen so much heart in the compact, fiery detective, _so_ much heart. Way more than he thought the average man even had the capacity to house, let alone show.

And slowly but surely, that heart extended its coverage beyond Danno, beyond his daughter, beyond the ex-wife he was still desperately in love with. It extended outward to Steve. Surrounded him. Pulled him in. To Chin. Enveloped him in a protective embrace. Kono. Wrapped her up so tightly Steve marveled at times that she could still breathe.

When Danny gave, Danny gave it _all_. And when he'd given it all, he somewhere found a place to give _more_ from.

Maybe Danny had mouth because there was too much _Danny_ inside of Danny to contain. Maybe the yelling was worry. Maybe the name-calling was fear. Maybe the poking and prodding at Steve every minute, it seemed, was trying to figure out _how_ to extend that heart in a way that could love, and be loved, without losing everything and being hurt again like he'd been with Rachel.

Twice now.

Steve was maybe starting to understand, finally, after a year of this strange thing they did, this two steps forward but one step back progression of their partnership. Of their friendship. As he watched his partner welcome his daughter back to Hawaii in the airport terminal, as he saw the tears of joy Danno simply could _not_ hide over having his baby girl back in his arms, Steve swallowed hard.

Boy, did Danno have heart.

_Danno:_

He couldn't do anything but stare. Stare at the wound Max had done his best to patch up. Stare at the way Steve tried really hard not to wince as he peeled the bandage slowly away. Stare as blood and clear liquid seeped through the stitches, the skin around them angry and red.

Stare as Steve looked up, eyes full of pain.

Danny's heart flipped a little. Steve had let him _in_.

He'd known for a while that Steve wasn't one to let people get too close and really, how could you blame a guy who'd had the governor of a state hell-bent on his demise, who had some fucked up Japanese criminal stick him in his crosshairs, who'd had to kill a good friend he'd worked with in a situation unlike any Danny could fathom, who'd found himself questioning his own father's integrity?

Oh, Steve had trusted his team almost from the get-go, in terms of not being ones to betray him, or not being ones to walk away from him when he needed them most. They cared, _all_ of them cared deeply for each other. It wasn't like being a regular cop, where there were guys you worked with and guys you drank with and that was pretty much that, when you went home to your wife and kids at the end of the shift or the case.

It was different. It was, Danny had learned, _ohana_. The little team had never batted an eye at his outlander status, had never begrudged him his own personal brand of crazy that sometimes rivaled McGarrett's, just in a different way. They'd opened their arms to welcome his daughter into the tight-knit circle, and they'd welcomed Jenna Kaye when she'd come to their door.

But right here, right now, standing in Steve's Master Bathroom because the idiot refused to go to the hospital where he _knew_ they'd want to keep him overnight, Danny fully got, fully _understood_ the trust that had developed between just the two of them since they'd first met at gunpoint in the McGarrett garage.

Steve was hurt. He was wounded. He was incapable of handling it himself. And _Danny_ was the one he was letting see him like this. Weak. Normal. _Human_.

So Danny cleansed the wound.

And he bandaged it back up.

He shook out two painkillers from the bottle, made his friend down them with a glass of water.

He pulled back the covers and made Steve get into bed, made him get comfortable, made him close his eyes.

And Danny pulled up a chair to the side of the bed and kept vigil.

There was no telling now, with Victor Hesse dead and Steve very publicly freed from all charges – not to mention Halawa – whether Wo Fat would try again this quickly. There was no telling how safe Steve was or wasn't, and in the condition he was in right now? Well, Danny and the rest of the team weren't _about_ to leave Steve on his own until he was good and ready to defend himself properly.

Danny wasn't sure how Steve would feel about Chin or Kono seeing him _this_ vulnerable, so he was glad the cousins had gone their separate ways with promises to return in the morning.

And later that night, when Steve woke shouting from a nightmare, when he allowed Danny to reassure him Wo Fat wasn't in the house, and to soothe him back to sleep, Danny's heart swelled bigger than he'd ever thought possible after it had swollen to accommodate his little Monkey nine years ago.

He wasn't sure what he'd done to make his friend believe he wouldn't be one of the people in his life who would hurt him. Who would love him, or pretend to love him, only to turn around and take him down when he was at his lowest.

He wasn't sure, but he was glad.

And maybe it patched up some of what had been torn apart with his second Rachel failure. Like he had patched Steve's gut up earlier tonight.

Danny didn't think he could stop loving Rachel on the turn of a dime. But he now knew there were more besides Monkey who needed his love, too. He fell asleep, chin on his chest, with thoughts of Kono on the beach the day he'd watched her deck a tourist and held onto her hand a little too long.

With thoughts of Chin, and the relief he'd felt when the bomb collar had been disarmed, as he'd led Chin away from that terrible place he'd had to kneel for so long.

With thoughts of Steve being stabbed in prison, locked behind walls where Danny couldn't do a goddamn thing about it.

And when he woke from his _own_ nightmare, and Steve talked _him_ down from the rafters, Danny thought, well…wow…yeah. This is _ohana_. This is my _family_ now.

It really is.

And damn if his heart didn't get even bigger.


	5. Teamwork

Part Five: Teamwork

_Steve:_

Steve's entire life starting around the time he joined the football team all the way through his Navy years had been about teamwork.

Sure, a quarterback could make or break a game, but if you didn't have anyone to hand the football off to or no target for a fifty yard pass, you didn't have much of a football game.

And he'd both been part of and led SEAL teams. You worked like a well-oiled unit or you died. Period.

Even in Naval Intelligence it had always been about teamwork. It didn't matter if you had to go undercover alone, you were never _truly_ alone. Wires, surveillance, all the people who gathered the intel to get you where you were to begin with. Everything he'd lived by for more than half his life was related to teams.

And really, what he'd found with Five-0 wasn't any different. They investigated as a team, working toward the common goal of solving the case, of saving the life. They had to go through the god-awful paperwork as a team, each of them supplying a piece of the puzzle that fit their own unique expertise. They had each other's backs like a team, and each of them were more than ready to take a bullet for any one of the other three.

The one thing Steve wasn't quite used to, was having his methods questioned. Normally, where he'd come from, he would give an order, and it would be obeyed without so much as a blink because in the SEALs, in Naval Intelligence, one blink could mean the difference between you living and dying.

Now for the most part, Kono went along with whatever the orders were because a) she was a rookie, and b) she absolutely loved it, period. (Never mind that Danny insisted Steve had forever tainted poor young Kono with his insanity.)

And Chin, well, every now and again Steve might get a raised eyebrow when he said or did or suggested something that was a little outside the realm of what your average, everyday cop was used to. But Chin knew how to follow orders, and Steve also suspected he was grateful for the second chance McGarrett had given him to do what he loved, and to do it with people who cared, so he was willing to overlook a little lack of 'proper procedure.'

But, well, there was one person on the team who, throughout the first year of Five-0's existence, didn't exactly take orders at _all_. Well, he did, but…not without…a significant protestation. Sometimes the protestations didn't come until after everything was over and done with, at which point Steve would manfully endure a lecture about what he'd done wrong, why anything that'd gone sideways was his fault, and how he was certainly going to get his partner killed far too young.

Yeah. That would be Danny.

The thing of it was, for all his ranting and raving and general bitching about this, that or the other thing that was stuck in his craw, Danny followed right behind Steve, like an ever-present shadow Steve knew he wouldn't be able to shake even if he wanted to.

And he didn't want to.

As time passed, Danny actually stopped giving him shit altogether, as in, just…stopped. Not only that, but Danny him_self_ started doing things that previously he would have ripped McGarrett a new one for. Things like, oh, let's see...pulling the pin on a live grenade to get a suspect to sing like a bird. Things like, um...nearly drowning a guy in a swimming pool when he wouldn't answer their questions.

Danny was nothing if not fascinating to Steve. And his progression from a year's worth of _Oh, my God, does he ever shut up?_, to _Oh, my God, he almost left me…er…us._, to the strange creature he'd come to call Pod Danny for a few weeks while he did and said things that were so out-of-character for him, Steve was seriously considering putting _him_ in the shark cage.

To this. This thing right here and right now.

Danny.

In swim trunks.

In the water.

Behind Steve's house.

The man who hated sand. Who was afraid of jellyfish in the water. The man who purported New Jersey to be Heaven on Earth, and Hawaii to be Hell. Or a hell_hole_, whichever. (Pineapples notwithstanding.) The man who'd been on the longest emotional roller coaster ride for around fourteen months that Steve had ever seen.

There he was tweaking the tiny nose of Stan and Rachel's son, and smiling about it.

There he was laughing and joking with Kamekona and Chin and Malia like he hadn't a care in the world.

There he was giving a very ocean-soaked, very ecstatic Kono a hug, because he…he, Daniel Williams from New Jersey…had just successfully stood up on a surfboard _in the water_ for the very first time.

There he was, throwing a bikini-clad…_bikini!_...Gracie up into the air so she could splash down into the water.

All Steve could do was stand at the water's edge, arms folded over his chest, and stare at his friend, the ghost of a smile gracing his features, as he saw for the very first time, the _real_ Danny Williams coming out to play.

And when Danny looked up from his latest tossing of Gracie into the water, caught Steve's eye and winked, a smile lighting up his face like 4th of July fireworks, Steve figured his team's – and their extended _ohana's_ – efforts had paid off at last.

Because Danny? Danny was _happy_.

And Steve couldn't ask for more.

_Danno:_

Danny hadn't been part of a team for a while.

Sure, in his school years he'd played sports, and even as a cop he'd been on the Newark PD baseball team. He still had the jersey they'd had made that sported their logo on the chest, faded though its dark blue arms were from so many washes and so many attempts to get out grass stains.

But as a cop, the one thing Danny had found was that other than when a group of them went in somewhere, there was no team, not _really_. It was you and your partner, and that was that. And when he'd made detective, it'd become even moreso. It was a detective and his partner, and the rest of the blue shirts were there to back both of you up on occasion.

It was never a team.

So this whole Five-0 thing, well, it wasn't like it was _difficult_ to do, to be a member of _this_ team. But even they had partners, what with Chin and Kono and then, of course, Steve and Danny. But, well, we've already discussed the whole expectations thing here, and the fact that this particular partnership was weird as far as Danny was concerned but something that somehow, against all odds, actually _worked_.

Baseball teams had never been this cohesive.

Football teams had never cared this much.

Wrestling teams had never been this willing to do _anything_ for each other.

Cops would take bullets, yes. But they didn't know your daughter's visitation schedule. They didn't know that you were so sleep-active during the night, your blankets always wound up on the floor whether you were in a bed or on a couch. They didn't know that this ringtone meant your ex-wife was calling, that one was your daughter, the other one was the ex-wife's lawyer, and the fourth one was Stan. (They also didn't sit and go through iTunes for a solid week until they found the precise ringtone they wanted you to use for them, unlike some *cough*NavySEALs*cough* he wouldn't name.)

They didn't bother to show up at your door and kick it in with a terrified look on their face just because you overslept and forgot to plug your damn cell phone into the charger.

They didn't hurt for you, their hearts didn't bleed for you, they didn't show it on their faces, when your personal life went bust _again_. When you had to watch the love of your life have another man's baby. When your little girl was kidnapped by your ex-partner.

Five-0? Five-0 _did_.

This family, they expanded to include big, goofy, silly, but good-hearted Kamekona, who'd taken care of Grace during the fake tsunami hoax.

They'd expanded to include Charlie Fong, and Ben Bass. Max Bergman and, surprisingly, a new teammate in Lori Weston. It didn't necessarily mean they completely trusted each and every person who was currently standing on the beach behind the McGarrett house. Not like they did each other, these four lost souls who'd come together.

But they trusted them enough to let their guard down today. They even invited Stan and Rachel and their baby over, and Danny never _could_ resist babies. Especially ones he'd seen born.

Kono was helping Grace with her new custom-made surfboard that had been a birthday gift from Five-0 to her today. Today, here, her tenth birthday, being celebrated at the McGarrett house thanks to Five-0. Thanks to team. Thanks to partner. Thanks to _Steve_.

Danny just stood there knee-deep in the water he'd once professed he'd only enter over his own dead body. He watched as Grace plopped off the board into the water, as Kono picked her back up and as they giggled and giggled about Grace's pigtails plastering themselves all over her face.

He watched as Stan caressed the cheek of his new baby boy, unable to keep the smile from his face because he knew how Stan felt. And he saw the love in Rachel's eyes as she looked at her husband and son, and maybe the ache in his heart eased just a little, because she looked _happy_.

He watched as Chin held his beautiful wife, as they kissed, as Kamekona subsequently doused them with the backyard hose, much to the delight of Lori, who couldn't stop laughing her ass off.

He watched as Ben dove into the water and spirited Kono away while Charlie flipped steaks at the grill and Max regaled him with tales of his _Star Trek_ geekdom.

And he watched as Steve stood with his toes barely being touched by the waves that lapped gently onshore. Arms folded over his chest, he was looking right at Danny as he hefted Grace out of the water, tossed her in the air and let her go, her high-pitched voice screeching through the muggy afternoon air as she splashed down into the placid water.

Danny liked this whole team thing.

He liked his teammates and, for the most part, his job. As much as you could like seeing the underbelly of Paradise.

He liked his car - if he ever managed to get the chance to drive it - and the new apartment he'd just moved into with the help of the same people who were now scattered around Steve's back yard.

And he liked his partner.

Grace clambered up his chest. "Throw me again, Danno! Throw me again!"

And so he did, and he laughed, and looked back up to the shore. Where Steve still stood, watching, with the ghost of a smile on his face. Danny winked at him as Grace's squeal of delight disappeared beneath the surface of the water, and Steve all-out grinned, one of those boyish ones that made him look ten years younger.

Lori ran into the water, tackled Grace and soon was engaged in a chicken fight with Charlie – of all people – on Max's shoulders.

Steve decided he and Danny were going to join in the fray, and when he dove into the water, came up between Danny's legs, and stood upright with his partner sitting square on his shoulders, Danny laughed his ass off, kicked him a little for good measure, and yelled, "_Hooyah_!"

The former SEAL let out a war-cry.

Lori looked frightened. (As well she should. Steve, well, he was nothing if not competitive in _all_ things.)

Half an hour later, Max decided to call it quits while he and Charlie were still standing (more or less).

Grace cheered equally for her chicken partner and her dad and her Uncle Steve, snorting so hard when Kamekona joined them and said he was enough chicken for two people, that she nearly choked.

They played well into the evening, and Danny's smiled stayed.

So did Steve's. And of course, they won. (I mean, this is _Steve_, right?)

Actually, they _all_ won.

Teamwork. Yeah. This was Danny's life now.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note: I hope everyone enjoyed this small-ish story. (Well, after doing two sets of 100 Ways for these guys, this was NOTHING! lol) And just a reminder, <strong>SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION WARNING HERE!<strong> My original novel "TAKERS" is available at both Amazon and Smashwords, just search for TAKERS Chris Davis at either site and you should find it...you can even look at a 20% sample on Smashwords to see if you think it's worth getting! Enjoy! **Love and a little bit o' bromance to all...**_


End file.
